Five punch-mark symbols / One small punch-mark. Irregular flat silver planchet, 14x11mm, 3.30 grams. Gupta/Hardaker ISPC series VI II D 119 var (#538 var)

Very interesting type - the fifth punch is an owl (as shown in Gupta/Hardaker), but on this coin it is clearly a chicken or some other bird walking left.

Bindusara was the second Mauryan emperor (297 - c.272 BC) after Chandragupta Maurya. The Greeks called him Amitrochates - the Greek word for the Sanskrit 'Amitraghata' (Slayer of Enemies). Bindusara inherited a large empire that consisted of North, Central and East India as also the parts of Afghanistan and Baluchistan. Bindusara extended this empire to the southern part of India, as far as what is now known as Karnataka. He brought sixteen states under the Mauryan Empire and thus conquered almost all of the Indian peninsula (he is said to have conquered the 'land between the two seas' - the peninsular region between the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea).